


Hermeneutical Injustice

by Damned_Writers



Series: the long road home [5]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: A study of the relationship between Garak and Ziyal from the perspective of an abuse survivor, Character Analysis, Complicated Relationships, Gen, Making sense of your past, Post-ASIT, Post-Canon, Unhealthy Relationships, flowers as metaphors, hinted at Kelas/Elim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:34:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23669233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damned_Writers/pseuds/Damned_Writers
Summary: Definition: Hermeneutical injustice, wherein someone has a significant area of their social experience obscured from understanding owing to prejudicial flaws in shared resources for social interpretation. Systematic and incidental cases are distinguished.An exploration of Garak and Ziyal's relationship from the perspective of Garak, an abuse survivor, who due to his upbringing and the context of his life, was unable to say no to her advances. Understanding his position after-the-fact, with all the general messiness of their relationship put under a microscope. Sometimes it's nobody's fault, but that doesn't make it less awful.But it's never too late for forgiveness...Part five of the long road home: A series exploring the lives of Julian, Kira, and Garak after the end of the Dominion War. The fics can be read as one shots or together.
Series: the long road home [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1744279
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	Hermeneutical Injustice

Year: 2378

_____________________

The name of the company that he'd set up, which now served as the de facto namesake for all of his rebuilding-related projects, was Tora Ziyal. She graced everything from the arches of schools, to plaques on health centres, to resettlement and refugee homes, to titles of exchange programs. She was everywhere, impossible to forget, just as Garak had intended. It was the very least he could do and what she deserved after what her short life had been.

At first Garak had felt a surge of mingled pride and grief for Ziyal, giving her the recognition on behalf of the many victims of the Cardassian government and the Dominion war. It was him making reparations for the person he'd once been, apologising for not being good enough to help her, honouring her potential.

But now... he couldn't say exactly when things had changed. Signing documents on behalf of the company, visiting places adorned in her name, seeing her everywhere, talking about her - at some point, frustratingly, the emotions seemed to stagnate, turn against him.

He tried to pinpoint what it was. A sort of bitter – no, it wasn't bitterness. Discomfort. A growing irritation when he zeroed in on unpleasant memories, the symptoms of his familiar friend claustrophobia kicking in like a warning.

He ignored it. It wasn't fair that she was associated with his ridiculous old traumas, (Kelas' voice in his head now: “ _Elim, you know they aren't ridiculous. You know you don't deserve what happened to you, don't you? … Elim...”)_

Damn! He'd accidentally crushed the stem of the flower he was planting... Perek. The funeral flower. He was part of a project to plant them at various official public sites of remembrance. Since there could be no burials for the sheer mass of victims and those disappeared the flowers would be allowed to grow without their petals pulled and scattered over the dead, as was the old custom. Now they lived for those who hadn't.

This project was again in some way in Ziyal's name, run as a joint operation between numerous charities and private funders - the planting itself was a ritual to further erode stale class differences. Everybody, regardless of who they had been before, was welcome, no questions asked, and teamed up so they could get to know one another throughout the months and years as the flowers were continually monitored and pruned.

Today Garak was doing work on his own though, which was lucky considering the line of thought his brain seemed to be taking these days. He was bad company. Kelas had noticed of course, but hadn't asked yet. He would, eventually. He always did. And what would Garak say? ... _that_ _I resent the name of Ziyal? I regret the relationship we had, I long for the lifetime in which I could have nurtured her instead of dreaded her company towards the end, I never ever said no, and she never realised enough to stop... I wish she hadn't thought of me like that. And that I had been brave enough to ask her not to, that I hadn't been unable to be honest with a young woman I liked and didn't want to lose. I wish I had learnt the strength of saying no instead of all the useless, terrible things that Tain taught me. How hard was it for him to teach a child how to say the word no without fear of punishment...how stupid that he still struggled with such a simple word...  
_

And then Kelas would frown in that way of his, understanding and making it all right, absolving him like he always, always did. Except he _shouldn't._ Not this time. it wasn't fair to her. She couldn't have known about his past, because he'd never told her about it. She was young, inexperienced, unable to process their attachment to one another, the child of a bastard like Skrain Dukat, who'd revelled in being manipulative towards those who were under his power. It was no surprise to him that she'd never had the chance to learn what others' discomfort looked like, what her own feelings were.

He noticed that he'd been clenching his fists and made the concentrated effort to exhale as he released them. He looked at the little plant still held in his hands. He'd accidentally crushed it in his moment of panic. Its bright leaves were crumbled and its roots were torn. It wouldn't be able to grow now. “I'm sorry,” he said softly to it and set it down next to him, carefully like the broken body of a child.

He began to plant another flower, feeling his chest constricting again and his hands jittering. “Now you're most definitely being ridiculous,” he continued aloud. “And what would Ziyal have said to that, hmm?” The earth was re-dug, the next flower gently removed from its pot. “What would you say, Ziyal? You couldn't know...” feeding the roots into their new home, - “and I can't ask you now, can I? No chance to salvage us from our own past destructive tendencies. I hope you're at least a little proud that I've managed to play catch-up after so long of not getting the right education. I set my boundaries, I grow and stitch and act as ambassador, and only occasionally am I called upon to do something underhanded. And then _only_ under my own orders. There's hope for anyone...” he thought again of Dukat, and of Tain, and of Barkan... “well, almost anyone...” he mumbled, purposefully not directing those words at the flower he was planting.

“Look at Damarr. He killed you and then he led the Cardassian Resistance. And then, suitably, he died just as he became a hero. Not all of us were that lucky. Some of us have to keep looking for penance in places we can't find it... Kelas tells me though that there are no such places, just the journey. And it's all about forgiving oneself really, however one can. Perhaps we're the lucky ones.” He paused a moment, then patted down the earth again. “You could never make that journey.” He surveyed his work seriously before nodding. “That one's for you, Ziyal. I realised... in all this time... I never planted one for you.”

As he had spoken his breathing had evened out again and the steadiness had returned to his motions. He sat back in satisfaction, looking around his own garden, everything there planted and meticulously cared for by himself. All his own. Only touched with permission.

He hadn't wanted it to begin with, but Kelas had insisted that they get their own place and through his connections they had found a little house with a patch of land big enough to plant things in. It was looking beautiful already, after only a few months of work.

A moment's peace settled on him in the surrounding bloom. Suddenly his gaze fell on the sad, failed little Perek that still lay beside him, prompting him to pick it up and hold it in his hands again. “Or for me,” he added softly and then shook his head. “Ridiculous,” he said again, but didn't let go of it when he stood to leave.

Before he carried it back inside he cast a last look at its proud sister that he had successfully placed in the ground. He would make sure to grow it with as much love as everything else that he had made. “I absolve you, if that means anything to either of us,” he said to it without ceremony and wandered back in, where he put the tattered Perek in a vase on his windowsill.

The sun would dry it out, turn its soft petals into a brittle, darker red, its stem would be knotted and brown, but it would maintain its own kind of beauty, even if it could never become what all those nurtured Perek's in the ground were. Still, Garak would care for it however he could, if only by continually placing it where the sun could shine on it the best.

As long as it was loved it couldn't really die.  
  
  
\---- The End -----

**Author's Note:**

> I asked on tumblr and general consensus is that "bastard" would be a pretty bad insult on Cardassia, considering how important parentage was, so here's assuming they have their own version of that word, just much much worse


End file.
